116 NOTES TO PREFACE TO 



arranged with any reference to those two general heads ; while in 

 Valerius Terminus the larger division is not alluded to at all, and the 

 order in which the four Idols are there enumerated, the first and 

 third being of one class, the second and fourth of the other, seems 

 to prove that no such classification was then in his mind. Besides, it is 

 to be remembered that the Idola Fori, however distinct in their origin, 

 are in their nature and qualities much nearer akin to the other two 

 than to the Idola Theatri. For though they come from without, yet 

 when they are once in they naturalise themselves and take up their 

 abode along with the natives, produce as much confusion, and can as 

 hardly be expelled. Philosophical systems may be exploded, false 

 methods of demonstration may be discarded, but intercourse of words 

 is " inseparable from our condition in life." 



At any rate, let the logical error implied be as large as it may, it 

 is certain that Bacon did in fact always class these three together. 

 Wherever he mentions the Idols of the Market-place with any 

 reference to classification, they are grouped with those of the Tribe 

 and the Cave, and distinguished from those of the Theatre. In the 

 Temporis Partus Masculus, c. 2. (which is I think the earliest form 

 of the Redargutio Philosophiarum though probably of later date than 

 the Delineatio) we find " Nam Idola quisque sua (non jam scenes dico, 

 sed pTSdtipue fori et specus"}, &c. In the De Augmentis Scientiarum 

 where the four kinds of Idols are enumerated by name and in order, 

 the line of separation is drawn not between the two first and the two 

 last (as it would have been if Bacon had meant to balance the mem- 

 bers of his classification on the "dichotomising principle," as suggested 

 by Mr. Ellis, p. 91.), but between the three first and the fourth ; the 

 Idola Fori being classed along with the Idola Tribus and Specus, as 

 " quse plane obsident mentem, neque evelli possunt.," the Idola Theatri 

 being broadly distinguished from them, as " quae abnegari possunt et 

 deponi," and which may therefore for the present be set aside. In 

 the Novum Organum itself, though the divisions between aphorism 

 iv\d aphorism tend, as I have said, to obscure the divisions of subject, 

 yet if we look carefully we shall see that the line of demarcaticn 

 is drawn exactly in the same place, and almost as distinctly. For 

 after speaking of the three first kinds of Idol, Bacon proceeds 

 (Aph. 61.), "At Idola Theatri innata non sunt [like those of the 

 Tribe and Cave] nee occulto insinuata in Intellectwn [like those of 

 the Market-place], sed ex fabulis theoriarum et perversis legibus 

 demon strationum plane indita et recepta." Lastly, in the Distributio 

 Operis, where the particular Idols are not mentioned by name, but 

 the more general classification of the Delineatio is retained, it is plain 

 that under the class Adseititia he meant to include the Idols of the 

 Theatre only ( " adscititia vero immigrarunt in mentes hominum, 

 vel ex philosophorum placitis et sectis, vel ex perversis legibus 



